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Professional Development Meme 2009

Happy Summer Holidays to all of those who teach/learn from September to June! I was catching up with my Google Reader and thanks to Claire, thought I’d begin my summer posting by sharing my pro-d plans for the lazy days ahead.

Directions

Summer can be a great time for professional development. It is an opportunity to learn more about a topic, read a particular work or the works of a particular author, beef up an existing unit of instruction, advance one’s technical skills, work on that advanced degree or certification, pick up a new hobby, and finish many of the other items on our ever-growing To Do Lists. Let’s make Summer 2009 a time when we actually get to accomplish a few of those things and enjoy the thrill of marking them off our lists.

The Rules

Pick 1-3 professional development goals and commit to achieving them this summer.

For the purposes of this activity the end of summer will be Labor Day (09/07/09).

Commit to sharing your results on your blog during early or mid-September.

My Professional Development Goals

1.Finish reading A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink and Here Comes Everybodyby Clay Shirky. I read the first chapter of each of these, but never continued because I was distracted by other learning. That seems to happen to me quite a bit. Sometimes I think my learning is a huge web full of divergence…

2. Post once every 1-2 weeks – There are several post ideas waiting in my little black book and simmering in my head. I’ve read Disrupting Class and Dances With Dependency in the last few months and I think writing about them would help to solidify my learning.

3. Finish my e-portfolio. I have the basic layout of an online resume completed. Now I need to collect, scan and import all the photos, newspaper articles, and other visual extras that will help to explain my unique teaching experience.

Like Claire and Phil, I’m not tagging anyone. If you read this post I hope you decide to join in and complete the meme in your own blog! Also like Phil, I’m going to add some extras. These are not necessarily goals, they’re more like professional development play to amuse me during the summer:

1. I’d like to play with Twitter this summer. I just signed up and love it already! Follow me!

2. I’d like to play with my blog. I should redo my About page, and I should also probably finish the 31 Day Blogging Challenge I started in, *cough*, January.

3. I need to start prepping a yearbook course. I’ve sponsored the school yearbook for three years, but always as an extra, after school activity. Next year, I’ve convinced admin to allow me to teach it for credit within the timetable. There’s a lot of potential for some great learning and collaboration here, so I’d like to be ready to maximize that.

That’s it! That’s enough! I’m so thankful to have a job I love which allows me summers off work to relax and rejuvenate. Ten weeks of nothing but time – time to read, play, learn, nap, run, bake, bike, socialize. It’s amazing to live life minus the forced work schedule.

Hi Errin,
This self tagging thing is working out quite well; thanks for joining the meme 🙂 You’ve got a great list of goals and ‘extras’. I haven’t read Clay Shirky’s book, but I thoroughly enjoyed Daniel Pink’s ‘A Whole New Mind’. Currently I’m working on ‘Disrupting Class’; I’d love to know what you thought about the book. Perhaps if we both post on it we can help push each others learning…

@Phil – I don’t know how much of a whiz I am, but I did surround myself with several whiz students! Let me know when you want to talk ‘yearbook’!

@Claire – It was a post of yours that reminded me of the Daniel Pink book. I can’t wait to read it. Great idea to push each other’s learning with Disrupting Class posts! Hope you have a great summer too!

Hi there!
I’m Teresa. I’m a K12 teacher of Portuguese Language and educational technologist. I’m from Portugal (southern Europe) and also a member of International Edubloggers Directory. Just came by to tell you that …. well… finally an interesting meme!! 🙂 I’ll try to do my own soon.

@Teresa – Hello and thanks for commenting! I decided to use iWeb for my portfolio because I could really personlize the design. Your portfolio looks great – very detailed! That must have taken some time to make. Thanks for sharing, it’s always helpful to see other examples.

An interesting note – I have a close friend travelling to Portugal to spend a month with extended family. She left today!

Anyway who says summer is too long needs to read your learning plan and realize that summer is too short! I have an image of you hurtling to end of the school year eager to pursure your goals, then launching into Sept fully re-energized. Your students are fortunate to have you a model of passionate lifelong learning and a curious, questionning nature.
Thought you might enjoy listening to this interview with another inspiring teacher, although of a very different style!